Join us for the launch of the third issue of Boshemia. The first issue included an examination of nudity in Reykjavik; a discussion on the intersection of black feminist identity and anti-jewellery; a symposium on coming out; and a reflection of the 80s genderbending trifecta of pop music—all there. The second issue included a lot about sex and gender, smartphones and outer space.

Expect more surprises for the third issue of this international journal.

Tickets: £3.00 on the door, redeemable against a purchase of the magazine. Refreshments included.

To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

… subtitled Freedom, Being & Apricot Cocktails… Paris, the early 30s. The three friends meeting over apricot cocktails on the rue Montparnasse are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron. Out of the conversations comes existentialism, and this is the story of the people involved, their personal development and their philosophical development.

The book claims to make existentialism understandable. Will the book group agree?

Five Leaves Book Group is open. It usually meets on the last week of each month, discussing fiction and non-fiction. We’re happy that people come once in a while, we’re happy if people turn up every time. As long as they have read the book. We don’t mind where people source their books but in the lead up to meetings we offer 15% discount on book group books, whether people are planning to come or not!

Free, refreshments provided. But not apricot cocktails, sorry

To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

The biggest radical bookfair of the year, with a programme of talks.

Stalls from publishers and booksellers throughout the day.

Website and programme to follow

Organised by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers

This event – run in conjunction with Sparrow’s Nest and the Notts and Derby Labour History Society comprises

12-2.00 A showing of the film “If” at Broadway – Broadway ticket prices apply, but we will have some tickets to sell too.

2.00 Exhibition – also at Broadway – on 1968 in Paris and Nottingham. Free.

3.00-5.00 Panel discussion about Nottingham in 1968, with Julian Atkinson (the impact of 1968 internationally), Mike Hamlin (the student movement), Roger Tanner (his memory of Paris May 68, because he was there), Jill Westby (fighting the colour bar campaign in Nottingham( and a speaker to be confirmed about local trade union campaigns in that year. Free. To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

‘She thought that it was precisely when things get uncomfortable or can’t be shown that something interesting comes to light. That is the point of no return, the point that must be reached, the point you reach after crossing the border of what has already been said, what has already been seen. It’s cold out there.’

Alicia Kopf’s Brother in Ice, translated form the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem, and published by independent publisher And Other Stories, won the English Pen Award and the Premi Documenta literary award. We are delighted to welcome Alicia to read from and talk about her book. This hybrid novel—part research notes, part fictionalised diary, and part travelogue—uses the stories of polar exploration to make sense of the protagonist’s own concerns as she comes of age as an artist, a daughter, and a sister to an autistic brother. Conceptual and emotionally compelling, it advances fearlessly into the frozen emotional lacunae of difficult family relationships. Deserved winner of multiple awards upon its Catalan and Spanish publication, Brother in Ice is a richly rewarding journey into the unknown.

• ‘In another country this book would have changed the course of history.’ Enrique Vila-Matas, author of The Illogic of Kassel
• ‘Simultaneously serious and light, incidental and yet transcendental.’ El Periódico

£3 including refreshments

To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

In the last decade, public discussions of transgender issues have increased exponentially. With this increased visibility has come not just power, but regulation, both in favour of and against trans people. What was once regarded as an unusual or even unfortunate disorder has become an accepted articulation of gendered embodiment as well as a new site for political activism and political recognition. What happened in the last few decades to prompt such an extensive rethinking of our understanding of gendered embodiment? How did a stigmatized identity become so central to U.S. and European articulations of self? And how have people responded to the new definitions and understanding of sex and the gendered body? In Trans*, Jack Halberstam explores these recent shifts in the meaning of the gendered body and representation, and explores the possibilities of a nongendered, gender-optional, or gender-queer future.

Booking essential via events@fiveleaves.co.uk.

Tickets: £3, including light refreshments

“Environmental thought and ‘green’ politics have been mainstream parts of British culture for more than a century. Yet where did these ideas come from? And who created the cherished institutions, such as the National Trust or the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, that are now embedded in our public life

“From the flatlands of Norfolk to the tundra-like expanses of the Flow Country in northernmost Scotland, I made a personal quest to find the answers to this question and to unravel what nature means to the British people. I also wanted to clarify how I truly felt and feel about what has happened to this country in the last half century.

“I explored in detail six special places that embody the history of conservation, or whose fortunes allow us to understand why our landscape has come to look as it does.  Above all [I attempt] to resolve a paradox: why do the British seem to love their countryside more than almost any other nation, yet they have come to live amid one of the most denatured landscapes on Earth?

“[My new book] Our Place is partly a work of history, partly a  personal geographical quest and partly a philosophical inquiry into our relationship with the rest of life. I’d like to think that it tackles some of the central issues of our age. And in its conclusion I attempt to map out how this over-crowded island of ours could be a place fit not just for its human occupants, but for all its billions of citizens.”

This year Mark Cocker completes 30 years as a Guardian country diarist. His ten other books include works of biography, history, literary criticism and memoir. They include Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet  and Birds and People. The latter was published to international acclaim and was a collaboration with the photographer David Tipling. Between them these two were shortlisted for six literary awards including the Thwaites/Wainwright Prize. His book Crow Country was shorlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and won the New Angle Prize (2009). Mark was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from the University of East Anglia, where he has recently placed his archive

Tickets: £4 .  Note venue: Nottingham Mechanics, not the bookshop

A Bread and Roses event

Bar on site.

Booking essential. To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

Bloomsday readings and music

A Nottingham Irish Studies Group event.

Readings from the work of James Joyce, to commemorate the day on which Ulysses is set (16th June 1904).

Readers: Brian McCormack and Deirdre O’Byrne; Irish fiddle played by Ruadh Duggan of Nottingham Comhaltas.

Tickets: £3. Please let us know you are coming, on events@fiveleaves.co.uk

Free entry if you dress in early-1900s costume.

Refreshments provided… but not these….

MR LEOPOLD BLOOM ATE WITH RELISH THE INNER ORGANS OF BEASTS and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod’s roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

Refreshments provided.

Free entry if you dress in early-1900s costume.

THE LAUNCH!

Feminist Book Fortnight runs from 16th to 30th June.

Initiated by Five Leaves, this celebration runs nationally in independent bookshops and we have several events planned.  See https://feministbookfortnight.wordpress.com/ where events around the country will be added as they are confirmed.

Here in Nottingham, please do join us in the shop to celebrate the launch. Pop along  between 5.30 and 6.30 pm and raise a glass of Prosecco  (cups of tea and other drinks also on offer) and have a natter.  10% off any purchases tonight!

An event for Refugee Week discussing Tiger and Clay, a collection of poetry and memoir by Rana Abdulfattah, a young Syrian woman writing in exile in Istanbul. In the collection, Rana charts the destructive effects of never being permitted to go home, and takes the reader on her emotional journey towards a measure of peace.

We hope to have Rana with us on Skype to read from the work and in discussion with Juan delGado from her publishing firm and Anna Ball from Nottingham Refugee Week.

Free, refreshments provided

To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

This talk and book launch assesses the forces of social struggle shaping the past and present of the global political economy from the perspective of historical materialism. Based on the philosophy of internal relations, the character of capital is understood in such a way that the ties between the relations of production, state-civil society, and conditions of class struggle can be realised. Conceiving the internal relationship of Global Capitalism, Global War, Global Crisis as a struggle-driven process is a major contribution of the book providing a novel intervention on debates within theories of ‘the international’. Through a set of conceptual reflections, on agency and structure and the role of discourses embedded in the economy, class struggle is established as our point of departure. This involves analysing historical and contemporary themes on the expansion of capitalism through uneven and combined development (Global Capitalism), the role of the state and geopolitics (Global War), and conditions of exploitation and resistance (Global Crisis). The conceptual reflections and thematic considerations raised earlier in the book are then extended in a series of empirical interventions. These include a focus on the ‘rising powers’ of the BRICS (Global Capitalism), conditions of the ‘new imperialism’ (Global War), and the financial crisis since the 2007-8 Great Recession (Global Crisis). As a result of honing in on the internal relations of Global Capitalism, Global War, Global Crisis the final major contribution of the book is to deliver a radically open-ended dialectical consideration of ruptures of resistance within the global political economy.

Andreas Bieler is Professor of Political Economy and Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ) in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of Globalisation and Enlargement of the European Union and The Struggle for a Social Europe as well as co-editor of Free Trade and Transnational Labour  and Chinese Labour in the Global Economy . He maintains a blog on trade unions and global restructuring at http: //andreasbieler.blogspot.co.uk.

Free, refreshments included

To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

The Inking Woman is a groundbreaking picture-led celebration of  the work of over 100 named British artists, and a few more anonymous ones, reveals a wealth of women’s wit and insight spanning 250 years. This wide-ranging curation of women’s comics work includes prints, caricatures, joke, editorial and strip cartoons, postcards, comics, zines, graphic novels and digital comics, covering all genres and topics. It addresses inclusion of art by women of underrepresented backgrounds. Join us with authors Nicola Streeten and Cath Tate as they discuss their book and the exhibition which inspired it.

£4 including refreshments

To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

In The Things I Would Tell You, edited by Sabrina Mahfouz, British Muslim women write. It is a vibrant collection on everything from Islamic Tinder to friendship, from desire to religion, from war to representation; ‘an alternative to the current homogenous narrative of British Muslim identity’. (The Skinny)

We are delighted to welcome 2 of the contributors to the best selling anthology The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write, edited by Sabrina Mahfouz, published by Saqi Books.  Join us for readings and discussion of the anthology as well as some poetry.

Aliyah Hasinah is a poet, producer and curator based in Birmingham whose writing focuses on personal understandings of history, politics and culture. Aliyah recently co-curated ‘The Past Is Now’ exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and produces for Apples and Snakes and Heaux Noire. She is also part of Art against the grain collective and 1/3 of the podcast Who Got the Juice? on Newstyle Radio.  Aliyah’s poetry is published in several zines, a colouring book and most recently, in this anthology.

Nafeesa Hamid is a poet, playwright and spoken word artist from Birmingham.  Her work engages with issues of mental health, domestic violence, gender, identity and culture.  She regulary performs in the Midlands and London and has worked with Apples and Snakes among  others.  She is part of Mouthy Poets, a collective of young artists and performers based in Nottingham.  Nafeesa has a new collection of poetry being published by Verve Press in June from which she will read some poems.

£4 including refreshments.  Booking essential. To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

An event with Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature and Five Leaves Bookshop as part of Feminist Book Fortnight

Nottingham welcomes Elif Shafak , internationally acclaimed author and political commentator. This lecture aims to provide a platform for leading writers and thinkers to share their ideas and promote Nottingham city’s wide ranging expertise on international literature, literacy and the wider creative economy to a variety of audiences nationally and internationally.

In her lecture Elif Shafak will talk about literature in the context of gender equality and reflect on the individual and multi-layered experiences of women.  She will talk about what reading means to her in private and professional life and delve into how it plays a role not just in enabling choice and action, but also in helping us to understand the perspective of others.

Please note venue: : Arts Centre Lecture Theatre at Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham

Tickets here: https://bit.ly/2jmdTsk

A Feminist Book Fortnight event

In June 2015 author Kamila Shamsie laid down a challenge to the male dominated publishing industry: “It is clear that there is a gender bias in publishing houses and the world of books. Well, enough. Why not try something radical? Make 2018 the Year of Publishing Women, in which no new titles should be by men”

The publisher And Other Stories duly decided to make this year the year they only published women.

At this event an editor from the publisher will talk about how this decision worked out, with guest readings from one of their authors and/or one of their translators.

Tickets: £3, including refreshments

To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

Five Leaves Bookshop is delighted to welcome political economist Ann Pettifor to give a talk as part of Feminist Book Fortnight and  in association with The Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice at The University of Nottingham)  Her book, The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of the Bankers is published by Verso Books .

What is money, where does it come from, and who controls it?  One may well ask.  To many of us, it is a mystery. A respected economist who predicted the 2008 crash and the reasons for it,  Ann Pettifor has a real skill for making the money system, the future of finance, economic policy and feminist economics engaging and accessible. She debunks much of what traditional economists and politicians tell us.

Ann Pettifor is a political economist with a focus on finance and sovereign debt. She is the Director of PRIME (Policy Research in Macroeconomics), an honorary research fellow at City University, a fellow of the New Economics Foundation, and has an honorary doctorate from Newcastle University. She has served on the board of the UN Development Report and in 2015 was invited onto the Economic Advisory Board by the British Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. She is the author of The Real World Economic Outlook and The Coming First World Debt Crisis, and co-authored The Green New Deal and The Economic Consequences of Mr Osborne.  She also writes regularly for The Guardian.

“Ann Pettifor was always the ideal author of a book that shatters the fantasy of apolitical money and the toxic myth that monetary policy must remain a democracy-free zone. This book is now a reality.”

– Yanis Varoufakis, author of And the Weak Suffer What they Must?

Please note venue: not at the shop.  Venue is the Clive Granger Building A40 at University of Nottingham.  The building is number 16 on the campus map here https://bit.ly/1OYgQaj

Free, but booking essential. To book a place, simply email us at  fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com

Five Leaves is pleased to again organise the last day of Lowdham Book Festival – this year being its nineteenth year.

16 events over the day, dozens of stalls from new and second-hand booksellers, book organisations and letterpress printers. Children’s programme. Cafe.

All events are free.  The main festival is organised by The Bookcase of Lowdham.

This event will feature readings in English by John Gallas and readings in te Reo (Maori) and English by Vaughan Rapatahana.

John is a Carcanet poet who was born in New Zealand in 1950. He came to England in the 1970s to study Old Icelandic at Oxford and has since lived and worked in York, Liverpool, Upholland, Little Ness, Rothwell, Bursa, Leicester, Diyarbakir, Coalville and Markfield, as a bottlewasher, archaeologist, and teacher. His books are published by Cold Hub Press (nz) and Agraphia (Sweden), and The Little Sublime Comedy is his tenth Carcanet collection. He is the editor of two books of translations – 52 Euros and The Song Atlas – also published by Carcanet. He is a Fellow of the English Association and was 2016 Orkney St Magnus Festival poet. Last year Five Leaves published a pamphlet – Mad John’s Walk about John Clare, but expect to hear more about New Zealand at this reading.

You can hear Vaughan reading in te Reo and English here: http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/features/six-pack-sound/01/rapatahana.asp

Vaughan is a New Zealand writer and reviewer. Though perhaps best known for his poetry, his bibliography also includes prose fiction, educational material, academic articles, philosophy, and language critiques. Rapatahana is of Māori ancestry, and many of his works deal with the subjects of colonial repression and cultural encounter. His writing has been published in New Zealand and internationally. In 2009, he was a semi-finalist for the Proverse Prize in Literature and in 2013 he was a finalist for the erbacce prize for poetry.

In 2016 Rapatahana won the Proverse Prize in Literature.

£4.00 including refreshments. To  reserve your place simply email us at events@fiveleaves.co.uk

You are invited to join Eve and Anthony to launch their new book on life writing.

The Accidental Memoir truly is for all: writers and non-writers, teachers and students, the perfect book for anyone seeking inspiration to explore their own life story.

 The story of you. The Accidental Memoir takes you on a journey of self-discovery, from the origins of your family name and earliest memories, to what you’d invent and how you’d change the world. This beautifully illustrated book is filled with inventive and accessible writing prompts, as well as tips for anyone wanting to document their lives and explore their creativity. Want to flex your writing muscles, exorcise your demons, relive moments of magic, make sense of life, have fun and leave a lasting legacy? The Accidental Memoir will show you how.

This innovative concept was developed as an Arts Council project to help people tap into their own lives. Working with diverse groups from refugees to the elderly and prisoners, it has been a success in unearthing stories that otherwise may never have been told.

Eve Makis studied at Leicester University and worked as a journalist and radio presenter in the UK and Cyprus before becoming a novelist. Her first novel, Eat, Drink and be Married, was awarded the Young Booksellers International Book of the Year Award. A screen adaptation of her third book, Land of the Golden Apple was shown in April 2017 and won several best in category awards at International Film Festivals. Her fourth novel, The Spice Box Letters, published in five languages, was shortlisted for the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, the East Midlands Book Award and received the Aurora Mardiganian Gold Medal.

Anthony Cropper was born in Fleetwood, Lancashire. He has published two novels and a collection of short stories. His play, I’ll Tell You About Love won the BBC Alfred Bradley Award for Radio Drama and he recently worked with Bristol Old Vic, writing the screenplay for the short film, Myself in Other Lives. Anthony has taught creative writing both in this country and abroad. He has worked with adult learners on short courses for the University of Hull (Centre for Lifelong Learning) and has also held writing residencies in schools through First Story, a charity set up to promote literacy and storytelling.

Free, refreshments provided, but please let us know you are coming by emailing us at  events@fiveleaves.co.uk